The first set of numbers is the address of the computer visiting my web site. As the clip below shows this is an address from the centcom.mil domain.
The next block of information is when the visit took place. This is followed by the actual page or items requested. (robots.txt is a special file for search engine "spiders" to tell them what part of a site to skip).

The gsa-crawler is a hardware box that Google sells that allows institutions to create their own google-searchable database. So, apparently some part of the Iraq-based military is maintaining a searchable database of postings related to current affairs.

Presumably the email address is for a technical contact if there are questions about the "spider".
This is the translation of the IP address into a readable host name:

Name:    vict-cache.iraq.centcom.mil
Address:  214.13.130.100

This may all be totally innocent, lots of spiders visit my site every day. It just seems odd that this first appears shortly after I started to post articles about surveillance and its effects on civil liberties. If it were part of real clandestine operation I'm sure the "spider" would come from some innocuous site, or the military could just get information from one of the existing search sites such as Google or Yahoo by means of an ongoing contract.

For example, here is a link to my essay that has been most widely read recently:

Surveillance vs Civil Liberties

My other recent diary posting may have sparked some interest as well:

The War is Over

Some other information.
The email address listed in the log doesn't work.

Some other sites visited by the same spider:
www.wsu.edu
ucar.edu
ststephenswvc.org
www.parchayi.net
www.ulakbim.gov.tr
wereld.cs.vu.nl
gumuz.looze.net
stewart.snerk.org
learning.lib.vt.edu
freedomunderground.org
www.iopan.gda.pl
www.easternct.edu
www.halexandria.org
blog.jdwhitlock.net
www.ews.uiuc.edu
www.theagitator.com

These were found by doing a Google search for "roberts" and centcom. They showed up because these sites allow their usage statistics to be indexed by Google. Most commercial sites wouldn't permit this since it could give competitors some information. So whether the spider is mostly targeting educational and non-profits can not be deduced from this, but the data is leaning in that direction.

It would be interesting if those who blog or have activist web sites would check to see if they have similar visits.

Just innocent monitoring of public opinion, or the tip of a new iceberg? 

Terrorists

The third group is one the one now being

most discussed in the press. Foreign and domestic "terrorists"

are portrayed as presenting a unique threat to civilized

countries. This threat is used as the rational for expanding into

new areas of surveillance. The latest data mining efforts are

just an enhanced version of all intelligence. If we only "connect

the dots" from diverse sources we can catch people before they

have a time to act. Recent history indicates that this has not

worked well. We have had attacks in Spain, the UK, Indonesia and

several other places just in the past year or two. None of these

impending attacks was uncovered. Why not?

Here we get into the awful truth of all data mining and

pattern recognition techniques. They only work when one knows

what to look for. I spent the bulk of my career on looking at

pattern recognition techniques in scientific research literature,

but the issues remain the same. My favorite example is to find

Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity published in

1905. Nowadays this is easy since subsequent authors in the field

refer back to it in their citations thus making a connection

obvious. Less successful is to try to use key words. This fails

because the terminology that developed for this field was not yet

in use when Einstein wrote his paper. So key word correlations

fail.

Similar problems arise with uncovering unknown activists. The

connections between them may exists, but where is the starting

point. If all are "newcomers" there are no "citation" links. In

addition they will use a made up vocabulary to communicate, hence

no key words. The shoe bomber and the millennium bomber were both

caught by chance.

The next problem with finding patterns of unknown activists is

the volume of material that must be scanned. The 9/11 commission

stressed the fact that there were links in the gathered data

which showed connections between the aircraft hijackers. They

assumed that the failure to make the connections was do to poor

management, or "barriers" between intelligence agencies, or some

other organizational failing. In point of fact the real reason

was that there is just too much information and finding the parts

that are significant is essentially impossible. We do not know if

they have prevented any actions, since they won't talk about

their successes, but if the system is not 100% effective than it

is ultimately a failure in the eyes of the public.

Foreign Governments

The second group to be watched

consists of foreign governments and their agents. This is usually

considered the domain of the CIA and similar agencies. Here the

difficulty lies with the methods needed for information

gathering. The other countries are aware of the attempts to

penetrate their intelligence and take active steps to conceal

their information. As a result there is much opportunity for the

deliberate releasing of dis-information by all parties. In

addition with large governments there may be contradictory

actions being taken at the same time. Not all branches have the

same goals, or are even in control of events within their own

administration. Once again we don't know about the successes, but

the failures are even more outstanding, given the amount of

resources devoted to the task. In the recent past we have seen

intelligence failures about the existence of WMD in Iraq, the

status of nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and going

back slightly further, the total unpreparedness for the collapse

of the Soviet Union. With 70 years of spying the CIA missed the

biggest story of the last quarter of the 20th Century!

Whether the poor quality of intelligence reflects the

difficulty in obtaining the data, or the difficulty of

synthesizing something from it, or the existence of ideological

biases which prevent accurate assessments is something for

intelligence experts to debate. For our purposes it is enough to

know that foreign spying is ineffective much of the time.

Domestic Activists

Lastly we come to the group of known

activists. Unlike the prior two groups these people are generally

not trying to hide their existence. Indeed one of their primary

goals is to change public policy so as to be in conformance with

their goals. Groups like the Sierra Club, or the ACLU depend upon

publicity to help achieve their programs. The same is true for

politically oriented groups, whether the Green Party or Gold Star

Mothers for Peace. Some try to keep their membership lists

private, but that is about the extent of their attempts to remain

unknown.

For this class of groups, surveillance works well. The groups

are known in advance, their publications and other activities are

easily monitored and connections between them are easy to

determine. It is this group that secret police have been most

successful in following. There is a long history of abuse by

police forces who monitor groups which advocate changes in

society. In the USSR, for example the KGB was a famous example.

In the beginning of the 20th Century the US government cracked

down on labor organizations like the IWW (Wobblies) and the

Palmer raids of 1919 imprisoned between 5,000 and 10,000 people

for opposing WWI. During the 1950's the US went after communists

and communist sympathizers. Once again a group of fairly

outspoken activists was easily monitored.

Along with monitoring the secret police commonly infiltrate

groups. This is to serve two purposes. The first is the obvious

one of having an insider to gather information. The second, and

more insidious, is to plant provocateurs within the group. This

is done either to lead them into breaking the law by making

suggestions for action, or sometimes to actually provoke such

actions during demonstrations in order to give the police an

excuse to act. There is recent evidence of such actions being

undertaken at anti-war rallies in New York City and at the

Republican national convention.

The net effect of all this is that governments use the excuse

of foreign threats by unfriendly countries, or by "terrorists",

to beef up the secret police sector. The fact that these goals

are poorly met is not important, the real goal is to use this as

a cover for suppressing political dissent, or at least monitoring

it, to make sure it doesn't become too effective. At this task

the secret police operations are usually quite effective, at

least in the short term. A single historical example will

suffice.

Starting in the 1870's there was a social upheaval in Russia.

Starting in 1861 with the freeing of the serfs a new social

dynamic started to develop. By the 1880's there were numerous

groups working to overthrow the Czar. Indeed Alexander II was

successfully assassinated in 1881. During this same period the

secret police became much more powerful. Numerous political

prisons were set up and the number of political activists that

were arrested, tortured, executed or sent to Siberia rose

precipitously. The activists were only partially trying to remain

undercover. Many printed underground newspapers and pamphlets

which they distributed while trying to elude the police. Their

semi-public stance made them easy to trace. However, despite all

the actions of the secret police the social pressures which had

caused the rise of these political groups proved too strong and

the entire Russian social system collapsed in 1917.

It is possible for the ruling elite to use a secret police

mechanism to suppress dissent, but if the reasons for the social

unrest are fundamental enough change will happen eventually. In

the Soviet regime which followed the Czars there was a 70 year

history of secret police and suppression of popular dissent. The

result was 20 million people killed or imprisoned, a barely

functioning economic system for most of the period, and,

ultimately, another social collapse: this time of the USSR

empire.

The US is now seeing the first stages of a worldwide

realignment brought on by the population explosion and the

decline in natural resources. This is leading to a downward

pressure on the US standard of living and "superpower" status.

The US will not be able to extract wealth from weaker powers as

it once did or control foreign countries by brute force. The

response seems to be a last gasp attempt at militarism combined

with a rise in internal police powers and a weakening of civil

rights. This trend, judging from history, can only lead to

personal misery for many, economic decline and social unrest. An

enslaved people do not make an effective workforce.

We are now in the midst of another one of those debates over

whether the ends justify the means. Those who support increased

surveillance ignore the lessons of history which caution about

the effectiveness of enhanced secret policing. These people are

either Utopians, believing this time it will work better, or

ignorant of history, or members of the class which is feeling

threatened by social change. The ultimate irony is that once a

police state is functioning properly it is the early supporters

who are most likely to suffer persecution. It is not that they

are less loyal than formerly, it is just that they know too much

about how the regime gained power and constitute a potential

threat to their continued dominance. Once again history provides

some examples: Leon Trotsky and the Soviet show trials of 1938

are a good place to start.

Only an open society can be a free society

Using the number of citations to "liberal" and "conservative" think tanks as a measure of the reporter's bias is like accusing a reporter of failing to mention the Flat Earth Society in a discussion of polar ice cap melting as guilty of "roundism".

Perhaps the fact that the pundits at places like Cato and Hoover are paid political flacks and have seldom produced refereed papers of any importance is what keeps citations to their "work" low. They mostly publish in their own house organs. Hoover goes so far as to pay for ads with their research "results" described in magazines like the "New Republic". I don't know anything about the quality of the journal this study is being published in, but it appears that one can get anything published these days.  

Let's stamp out this piece of shoddy pseudo-scholarship before the right starts trumpeting it as "conventional wisdom." 

Conservatives are upset by this level of spending, but are unable to see how to change the spending programs. Attempts to cut back on social spending are mean spirited, insufficient and politically impractical in the run up to elections.

So the only avenue open is to raise taxes. I think the Democrats should take the lead in this, now. It will have to be done sooner or later and if steps are deferred until after 2008 the situation will have just gotten worse by then. In addition raising taxes as one of the first steps in a new administration leaves one open to the "tax and spend" mantra used by the conservatives. The problem happened under the present administration and thus needs to be corrected now.

Here are some initial ideas on how to raise taxes. Please feel free to add to the list.

First, the issue of the estate tax is irrelevant. What is being debated is whether a future tax break will go into effect or not. There is little practical effect on current tax deficits. The Democrats can continue to push for an appropriate estate tax policy, but we need changes which take effect immediately.
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I suggest imposing a war surcharge on the top three income tax rates. The 28% rate would be raised to 31% (about a 10% surcharge). The 33% rate would be raised to 39% (a 20% surcharge) and the 35% rate would be raised to 45% (about a 30% surcharge). Examination of the brackets will show that this will effect those most able to pay the most. Those who have been squeezed by rising costs and stagnant pay scales will be unaffected.

In addition I would limit the amount of interest that can be deducted for a mortgage. The amount of interest that could be deducted on the income tax would be capped at $25,000. Second mortgages and home equity loans would not be eligible for interest deductions. At present interest rates near 5% this would allow borrowing $500,000 in principal which is sufficient to finance the bulk of homes in the country. Median home prices for existing homes are currently in the range of $320,000 so a $500,000 cap on principal would only affect the most expensive houses.

To compensate for the hidden rise in the cost of living I would suggest reactivating the deduction for interest on consumer loans. This deduction would apply to home equity, revolving credit and auto loans. There would be a cap of $10,000 in interest on this. At current common loan rates of 20% this would allow borrowing of $50,000 in consumer debt. Credit card debt balances now average about $7,000 per household which means that most families would be able to deduct their entire credit card interest.

Common stock dividends should be treated as regular interest again rather than being taxed at a 15% rate. Those with large amounts of dividend interest can afford it and those with a small amount of stock holdings will only be affected minimally.

Corporate taxes should be subject to a surcharge as well. Retained earnings should be taxed at a suitable rate, somewhere in the 25-35% range. Earnings paid out to shareholders would not be considered retained earnings. Business expenses for capital improvements would be counted against earnings as is done currently, but expenses incurred in mergers or acquisitions would not. Companies buying companies does not produce any real wealth or provide economic stimulus.

Foreign earnings need to be repatriated annually and not be allowed to accumulate overseas tax free. The recent tax holiday for overseas earnings exempted billions from US taxation. This must stop.

Stock options and other indirect payments must be treated as regular income in the year granted and taxed appropriately. Consideration should be given to imposing an excess compensation tax as well.

These new tax programs would be considered as temporary, war and disaster finance taxes. They would be repealed or readjusted two years after US troops withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, and provided no new major troop deployments have taken their place. Troops left abroad, as in Kosovo, for peace keeping purposes would not be counted when figuring the date for the surcharges to end.

The Democrats need to propose these actions as emergency measures taken in time of war and national disaster as soon as the November elections are over. They can all be set to take effect as early as Jan 1, 2006. Unwillingness by the Republicans to consider this type of legislation can be countered by appeals to common sacrifice, patriotism and fiscal responsibility. These appeals have been very successful in other times of economic distress. Look at the sale of War Bonds during WWI and WWII as examples.

The longer range issues of the negative effect of our current tax policies can be addressed after the immediate issues are taken care of. I have a short essay on more far-reaching tax reform ideas here:

Corporate Taxes

By raising taxes now we will reduce our need for current borrowing from abroad, this will eventually lower the amount of current government expenditures for interest on the national debt and reduce the cost of borrowing for the private sector as well. This may seem to run counter to the Federal Reserve policy of raising interest rates to curb inflation, but even the Fed has acknowledged that federal spending is out of control.

Shouldn't FEMA or the Dept of Energy be putting a rationing plan into effect? Simple things like mandatory car pooling or ration coupons for gasoline could make the market behave much more smoothly. Similarly planes could be required to meet a certain passenger fill capacity before they could fly. This would cut down on inefficient jet fuel usage.

I'm sure there are lots of other ideas, but I don't see any inside (or outside) government discussing them. The public needs to be prepared if there are going to be changes in fuel usage. Letting the market decide is not the best plan. Guidance and evaluating rival uses is better.

Sorry for proposing something that sounds like industrial policy...

The short range goal of moving people from New Orleans and other demolished areas should be done within a few days.

It is time to start building the next phase now.
1. Set up tent camps or other prefab structures in areas with surrounding services.

2. Move people to military bases in unused barracks or set up tents.

3. Build temporary shelter and mobile kitchens for workers needed to run the port, rebuild the power and communications grid and man the chemical industry. These shelters have to be in close proximity to the work sites unlike points 1 and 2 which should be farther away.

4. Plan for permanent relocation of a significant fraction of the populace under the assumption that the low lying poor areas will not be rebuilt.

After the tsunami hit Hilo Hawaii the area near the water was reconfigured as a park and roadways and the rest of the town was moved uphill.
The beaches along the gulf should also be redesigned so that housing and hotels are not permitted so close to the shore.

5. Create new building codes to make structures stronger and less wind prone. Florida has done this already. Existing buildings should be retrofitted over time. San Francisco has done this with earthquake proofing.

6. Start a policy debate on the balance of resources the country spends on infrastructure vs military and policing. A country rotting from within can not long support its global objectives.


Since FEMA and other services seem to lack the imagination it is up to us to get creative.

Propanda works both ways. In the case of Modern day America, The left has the monopoly on it.

"You are owed a good living, by the Government"
"You are not responsible for your actions, ever"
"Minority rights should be held in higher status than Majority rights"
"You should be supplied with free housing"
"You should be supplied with free food"
"Alternative lifestyles are special and deserve greater privilages than the norm"
"If you film a murder and beastiality and necrophilia, and call it ART, it's ok"
"Freedom of expression and speech is limitless and to touted for an excuse for any foul behavior you may feel the need to display"
"We are responsible to all other foriegn countries, above the will of our people"
"Anyone disagreeing with any of these rules should be silenced immediately"
"If our candidate loses an election, there was absolutely cheating involved"
"Anyone who opposes our way of thinking is a facist and a liar"
"There is no God, unless it's Krishna, Allah, or Budda"
"Any exhibition of religion in America is Unconstitutional and should be outlawed"
"Pedophilia is legal under Freedom of Expression"
"Murder is acceptable if the Murderer had a bad childhood or had their self esteem harmed in words or deeds"
"Animal rights supercede Human Rights"
"Laws are only to be applied when the result favors the left"
"Laws can be interpreted to mean the opposite intention if it's done right"
"Universities should be entirely funded through the Federal Government"
"You have a right to Completely Free Healthcare for life"
"Industrial Sabotage and Murder is alright when carried off against Corporations"
"Anyone with more money than you should be made to support you"
"War is wrong, No matter the reasons or circumstances. Make love not war"
"By allowing those who hate you to control you creates peace"
"Giving up your Freedoms when your enemy demands it, is to retain peace and security in your day to day lives"
"There is No good reason to Fight"
"There should be no competition, anywhere in our lives"

This list could go on to the infinate of obsurdity.
And these People want to run the Country.

To clarify, I divide the media into four (plus one) categories:
1. Major daily newspapers
2. Major weekly news magazines
3. Network news broadcasts
4. Political magazines
5. Online discussions

Major newspapers see as their function to primarily report the events of the day. The expected relevance of their publications is just a few hours. So their role is to get the facts out as quickly as possible and go on to the next story.

There is also a secondary role which is to provide space for opinion articles. These are usually restricted to well defined sections of the paper. So for a story to appear in a daily newspaper there needs to be a triggering "event" which provides the hook. It is thus unfair to expect a daily newspaper to continue to discuss something over a period of time unless there is a new development.

The exception to this is when the newspaper is doing its own investigative reporting and then presents the results of the investigation when the research is completed. There is usually no immediate triggering event in those cases.

For weekly news magazines their role has become more difficult with the 24/7 news cycle. By the time they appear in print everyone has heard the underlying story already. So they must try to make the story interesting (again) by use of more pictures, or by background interviews or other secondary material that a daily doesn't have time (or space) for. These days they seem to do almost no investigative research and, in my opinion, are becoming relatively unimportant as sources of news.

TV news tries to emulate the role of the daily newspapers, but with even less "space" for stories they have turned into a headline service. There is a small amount of investigative reporting that is shown on their hour-long news magazines, but this seems to be mostly about human interest and consumer affairs.

Political magazines devote most of the space to analysis (or opinion, if you prefer). Only a handful do any primary news reporting. Examples include "The Nation", "The New York Review of Books", and "The New Yorker". Even for these publications they usually only have one or two people on staff who can be considered investigative reporters. The rest of their news reporting articles are from freelancers.

And now we have the internet. This is unique in that it is instantaneous and can be a two way communication. So it has developed into a medium where well-known media personalities can write at length about topics that don't fit with their regular employment and where anyone can become a commentator. What it lacks is a financing structure that can bear the expense of real news gathering or investigative reporting. So no matter how entertaining, it is mostly just an echo chamber of the stories reported elsewhere. Because the cost of entry into the medium is so low it is possible for the online community to keep after a story even when there is no news "hook". It is unrealistic, however, to think that just because a story has some importance in the course of history it is going to be followed with the same interest by the dailies.

If there is to be a real change in the way important social issues are covered in the media then I think the online format will have to evolve. There needs to be a way for those with important stories to tell to get the public ear. So maybe a new social structure needs to be created which goes beyond the blog model and becomes a source of primary news from whistle blowers and eye witnesses to events. There needs to be some way for the facility to be publicized and there also needs to be a way to protect those who wish to remain anonymous.
How many first-hand reports do we read from Bolivia or Iraq, or even corporate America online?

If the blogosphere is unhappy with the coverage provided by the mass media it is up to us to create a new information paradigm.

1.Growth rate of medical costs: Over the past several decades medical costs have grown faster than the cost of living and have become an increasing percentage of the GDP. There are several reasons for this, increasing number of people (especially the elderly) being covered, cost of new technology, transition to a corporate delivery system from a mixed local and non-profit one, and the cost of patented drugs.

2.Aging of population: An older population will require, on average, more health care. The old population is increasing in absolute numbers, as well as a percentage of the total. The life span is also increasing.

Lets analyze each of these in turn.

The growth in coverage is mostly over. There are at present about 40 million under covered out of about 300 million. So full coverage would only be an additional 10-15% over the next decade (including population growth).

The cost of new technology. There has been a growth spurt in expensive medical equipment such as MRI and PET scans. There was a bulge in expenses as these went into general use. We can expect some short term bulges in the future when similar inventions occur, but, overall, new technology lowers cost. The cost of laser vision correction has now dropped so low that doctors are dropping out of the field, for example. A new scan for heart attack victims promises to greatly reduce the cost of diagnosis in an emergency situation. Fifty years ago a computer cost as much as an airplane (and was almost as large) and now they are throw-aways in cell phones. Why not expect the same price/performance for medical devices?

We have moved from the family doctor and the local non-profit hospital to the corporate group practice and the for-profit medical facility. This has added about 30% to the cost of delivering services. The claims about competition lowering costs have not been borne out. Companies do not enter a business unless they can make a profit, unlike charities. Therefore, they need to gross enough over the actual costs to generate this profit. As a society we have decided to add a layer of expense to the health care delivery system in the form of insurance, benefits monitoring, purchasing agents, etc. These are mostly unnecessary expenses when compared to a universal system and are lumped into the health budget, but are really a way to subsidize employment.

There has been a burst of patented drugs, commanding excessive prices, over the past several decades. Much of this has been the result of prior government-sponsored basic research. The amount of this research has now decreased, so the pipeline is not as full. In addition, the most widely used drugs are nearing the end of their patent period and can be expected to fall dramatically in price. Even if new patented drugs are released they will only amount to a small percentage of overall drug usage. Simple adjustments to marketing such as prohibiting prescription drug advertising to consumers and over prescribing of highly promoted drugs can also do a lot to moderate costs.

Just as medical technology can lead to lower costs, new treatments can be expected to do the same as well. Stem cell research and the like promises to cure, as opposed to treat, some chronic diseases. If someone is once again able to produce insulin because of gene therapy, then they cease to be a life long customer for diabetes medication.

The population is aging, however the old tend to be healthier than previous generations. Thus, the projected costs to cover this segment will not be as great as before. A small change in overall health can have a dramatic change in eventual costs. Just being able to treat a single chronic disease such as Alzheimer's Disease could move thousands of people out of expensive chronic care centers at a per capita savings of $20,000 - $50,000 per year. Multiply this by the average three to five year stay and you can see a dramatic change in costs.

So what should be done now?

1.Decide if non-health related expenses (middle men) are going to accepted as part of the system, and, if so, stop using them as an excuse to restrict benefits. Society can decide to be deliberately inefficient if it wishes. Just look at farm subsides, or Amtrak. The costs just need to be accepted for what they are: a subsidy to the medical/industrial industry.

2.Rein in drug costs or, again, accept the deliberate market distortion. When the Medicare drug benefit starts and people can choose alternative private plans there will be downward pressure on prices, they just won't come from the government, but from private plans looking to attract seniors with a better deal. The only way they will be able to compete is to force lower costs from the service providers just as HMOs do now.

3.Alter the revenue collection system. This can be done through a change in the present tax code, or by establishing a universal health taxation mechanism, or by the imposition of an entirely new tax scheme such as a VAT. If the public wants to meet the expense of the health care system, including the deliberate inefficiencies, it just has to decide to pay for it. The economy can afford it. Just buy a 42" inch TV instead of a 50" next year.

It's obvious that many developed countries are providing equal or better care than the US at lower per capita cost, so there are plenty of models to choose from. If these examples were not staring us in the face the doomsday predictions might carry a bit more weight. But, its hard to argue with reality. We have set up a system where a private health management sector absorbs 30-40% of the nominal health budget and then we decry the associated costs.

The real motivation behind the current "crisis" is to shift even more of the health care budget from services to profit. What we are willing to accept is up to us. Liberals need to take care not to fall into the semantic trap being set up by declaring health care a crisis or a demographic time bomb. Costs will moderate as they always do when one sector of society gets out of hand.